


creek blues,

by jewicidal



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1990s, Amateur Taxidermy, Animal Death, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Mental Health Issues, Underage Drug Use, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jewicidal/pseuds/jewicidal
Summary: And when you watch her brush her piano fingers across the bullet holes in the tree with great interest, you wonder what she’s thinking.





	creek blues,

**Author's Note:**

> just a lil story about being gay in the south and ur gf has homicidal tendencies ╮(￣ω￣;)╭

**June 19. 1997**

Your name is Karen, you are seventeen and you have a lover. Your lover is eighteen, dropped out, and a girl.

Mulcaney is her last name. One day you dream of having that last name. It’s better than yours.

You brush your fingers on the wall in her hallway, the family pictures enrapturing you as you slowly walk. She looks young. A bright crooked smile sometimes on her face. Braces sometimes on the others.

The door is open at the end of the hallway. That’s her room. You stop at the entry and smile fondly as you watch her fiddle with the portable radio on her makeshift nightstand.

Her dusky freckled face turns to your arrival and her warm, honey gaze lands on you. She smiles fondly in return.

“Come ‘ere,” she says, a slight southern drawl in her voice. You listen because you want to.

Both of you lay in her old daybed she’s had since she was eight. The mahogany wood covered in old chips and the comfortable mattress was aged well.

Your head lay on her chest, her heartbeat slow and thick.

Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused crackles softly. It’s on her favorite station.

The bones she’s collected stare at you on the opposite wall. 

Bird. Rat. Squirrel. Possum. Skunk. Cat.

It’s always been roadkill. But you aren’t afraid. They’re her bones. And her bones aren’t scary.

It’s life, she said, life that used to be living. And you understand her.

Her mother tries to. The father that she’s never known doesn’t.

Maybe it’s love, but she’ll never know. You’re content with tracing faux constellations on her freckles with light fingertips.

**July 6. 1997**

You pat the hound on its large off white and dark ginger head. His name was Archie and he was a mutt. A stray, she said, we found him at a gas station.

He pants in the summer heat, but he isn’t tense. She’s fiddling with her shotgun bullets in the backyard and you watch her on the porch.

Your expression is undeterminable as you watch her and remember her showing it you for the first time.

“Make sure the safety’s on or you’ll blow your head off,” your lover had said with a too cheerful grin. You took her words to heart.

But you watch and she doesn’t make sure the safety is on. You call to her from the porch and she makes a noise to let you know she heard.

She makes sure the safety is on.

And when you watch her brush her piano fingers across the bullet holes in the tree with great interest, you wonder what she’s thinking.

**July 18. 1997**

She’s smoking pot and you know it’s illegal. But it smells like blueberries and she’s not angry when she’s smoking it. And you know it’s better than nicotine.

She takes a drag and the thick smoke wraps around the both of you like a blanket.

You’re lying on the old leather couch as you watch children’s television, but you’re not really paying attention to it.

You recall what she had told you over the home phone that morning.

“I have a psychiatrist,” she said with bated breath. You want to say you're happy. You want to but you know you won’t.

You ask why and she doesn’t tell you. It’s better to not know why.

She’s not angry and that’s all that matters. She’s content and that’s all that matters to you.

**August 2. 1997**

That day she says I love you while you both eat cheap store-brand tube popsicles on the backyard porch. Archie licks the dripping artificial sugar off your hand and your lover swats him away with a disappointed tone.

She’s taking five pills each morning now. You’re okay with that but she’s not really herself anymore.

She isn’t happy.

You don’t see her switchblade grin anymore. You don’t see any more bones on the shelves anymore. You don’t see shotgun slugs in the grass anymore.

She doesn’t know what to do with herself anymore but you’re okay with that. She loves you and you love her.

Everything happens for a reason.

**August 15. 1997**

She’s in the shed skinning a canine. It’s not hers. Archie doesn’t have black fur.

She hasn’t been taking her five pills each morning now. You’re okay with that and she’s herself again.

You can tell she’s excited by the small smile on her face. Her carefulness as she removes the tendon from the bone.

“I don’t have dog bones,” she tells you with excitement. You nod and smile. You want to ask her where she got the deceased hound. It’s better not to know.

You didn’t want to know. And you’re glad she didn’t tell you.

But you saw how she wanted to tell you. But you saw that she loves you.

**August 27. 1997**

School starts next Monday. She knows it but she doesn’t ever point it out.

She’s content with laying her head on your lap while you run your hand through soft, short dark hair. It looks like a boy’s but she makes it work.

She’s playing with a butterfly knife. You know this because she told you what it was.

“Do you still go to church?” She asks you. You nod and she nods. You know what she thinks about religion but you don’t mind. You also know of the porcelain cross hanging on their kitchen wall. It’s got pink and blue flowers and vines.

It’s just a romanticized symbol of death, she once said when you pointed it out. She dropped out but she was smart. You wanted to urge her to go back but knew she would be angry if you did.

**August 31. 1997**

School starts tomorrow. You don’t want to leave her but you want to get into a good college.

She’s promised you she’ll wait. And you believe her.

She’s back to taking pills but she’s only taking three. Her mother wants her to take all five. But somewhere deep inside of yourself, you don’t want her to take any.

They change her. Not for the good. Not for the better.

You know you’ll miss the bones. You’ll miss her aiming at pine trees with a Coach gun. You’ll miss her wild honey eyes when she picks up the dead possum in amusement off the side of the road.

Church is over now and you’re walking on the train tracks with her. Her larger hand holds your pale, small one to help you balance.

“My mom doesn’t like you,” you say casually as you try not fall off the rail.

“The feeling is mutual,” she replies the same way.

And when you lay in her bed as the sun sets while you braid your long blonde hair and wait for your dad to pick you up, you want to know what she’s thinking as she runs her index finger along the ridges of the dog’s skull.

She’s tracing the eye holes with childish wonder. Like a five-year-old learning what a globe looks like.

You really don’t want to know. So she doesn’t tell you.


End file.
